Yes, it is clobbering time! I googled it.
I often wait too long to post about upcoming events for anyone to do anything about it (or for those who do not live in travel distance of NYC to feel bad for what they’re missing, like crazy high rents and getting gum stuck on their shoes in the subway). However, given the awesomeness of this Saturday’s events, I hope this will be enough lead time for at least some of y’all!
First up, nerdNYC is organizing a Marvel RPG launch party at the Compleat Strategist on 11 E. 33rd St. Anytime from 11 am until 4 pm, you can learn to play the new Marvel RPG from Margaret Weis Productions. I cannot confirm that James will be there to field-strip its reward systems or demonstrate his hot and weird abilities to open his brain to the Marvel maelstrom and barf forth continuity, but I know for sure that my son and I will be there with bells on. This should provide an interesting experiment in player skill, as my son has been reading himself to sleep with the Marvel Encyclopedia ever since he got it at his last (9th) birthday, whereas I wanted to put “It’s Clobbering Time” as the caption for that photo but then was unsure whether that was a Marvel or DC thing.
Then later that very same day at 7pm, I will be kicking off a series of explorations of the legendary Dwimmermount mega-dungeon at the Brooklyn Strategist‘s sweet new location on 333 Court St.
Geek Chic's hypographer says that the Sultan gets more press than Giles Corey. I love that they hire nerds so advanced that I need to Google this caption too.
If you can’t make it to this one, fear not! The Dwimmermount events will be at the B-Strat every Saturday throughout the campaign by Autarch and Grognardia Games to crowdfund the process of turning the notes and experience from James’ home campaign into a location other referees to use as the tent-pole location for their own campaigns, as an inspiration for designing their own dungeons, or as the source for many unique creatures and weird magical items that can be dropped into any fantasy game.
However, if you can’t make it I am not above making you feel bad. We will be playing on the B-Strat’s Sultan gaming table, and recording our progress by building the dungeon as we go with Master Maze pieces from Dwarven Forge sculptor Stefan Pokorny’s personal collection. Eventually we will also be using miniatures sculpted for the project by Sandra Garrity based on backer’s descriptions of their rival adventurers, which will also be illustrated by Jeff Dee.
If I can convince Jon Freeman to let me hang stuff on the walls of his beautiful new place, visitors to the B-Strat can also admire the original of the painting Jeff is doing for Dwimmermount’s back cover. Up in Toronto, players in James’ campaign will be basking in the glory of Mark Allen’s painting for the front cover, which shows their adventuring party in a characteristic moment of mystery and wonder. I am no less proud that my PbP adventurer Locfir the Astrologer was among the group seen on the back cover, especially since this let me earmark that one for display in my home town.
To continue this goal to make the published work reflect what really happened in play in as many ways as possible, one of the seats at the Sultan each evening will be reserved for an artist in residence. Their sketches and maps and doodles during the game will be donated to the Play-Generated Maps and Documents Archive for the enjoyment of all. We also hope that each session of play will inspire at least one illustration, so that a moment from our adventures together will be published in the final Dwimmermount book and PDF bundle.
If the Kickstarter hits the right bonus goal level, a copy will be etched into gold, attached to a space probe, and sent beyond our solar system to make aliens feel bad about missing these Saturday events even there is no way they could possibly have attended.
Charlatan
Eric Minton
maldoor
Greengoat
David Wellington
James Nostack
tavisallison
The Mule Abides 
OK, just kidding about that last part.
In all seriousness, my goal in putting together these Kickstarter rewards was to create some of the opportunities for amazement that any exploration into gaming history offers the searcher.
In the Book of the New Sun, the Guild of Libriarian recruits new members through the Book of Gold. Most visitors to the library will never find it, but those who do will spend their lives curating the tomes that can hold such wonders.
Gene Wolfe has said that for him, Vance’s Dying Earth was the Book of Gold, and he wrote in the hopes of creating such a book for someone else. My initiation into the Guild came from the Rogues Gallery; the revelation was that all the parts of D&D were connected, from the artifacts in the DMG to the names of the spells to the titles given to the legendary adventures, because they recorded what a group of friends and family had created as they played this game together. All that for me is there in Jeff Dee’s illustrations for the Rogues Gallery, and to be able to work with him on Dwimmermount closes a circle I never dreamed of in all my dreams of D&D.
I don’t at all feel bad that I missed those games. On the contrary, I prize the traces they left in TSR’s publications and the evidence that once upon a time some people sat around a table and created something fantastic.
I am grateful to be in a position to be able to create something pretty cool in this place and time, and hope some of y’all can be there too.
My Saturdays are always a little last minute, but I’m really hoping to make some of the Dwimmermount sessions!
Tavis: I am a little wobbly on running the new Marvel game, but I will gladly run it for you and Javi if there’s a table.
My ability to Barf Forth Continuity is actually kind of limited in this context, because the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game likes to pretend that Marvel Comics were published after 1990, when every right-thinking person knows that’s not true.
I like you better as a database of suppressed (imaginary) history! Kind of like how it is awesome that the Monster Manual printout that the robot cleric 23 keeps in his chest is for the wrong age of creation.
I’m in for Saturday – for shures. Dewdrop Morningwood and Lafone Shimmersky Ride again!
Sodiw, don’t understand it, but I am really drawn to your comment handle. Welcome!
@sodiw you are not the first to suggest that I am an overly professional blogger! I was just thinking about doing an extra of my wonderful posts where I link back to a blogosphere exploration from the early days of the Mule in which I talk about how fundamental Grognardia was to my development as a gamer, because I felt like I should protest too much that I was a fan before there was a possibility of getting XP from GP out of it. That’s spooky like how crazy people in public restrooms always seem to say deep insightful prophetic nonsense as you’re trying to take a leak.
@Lord Bodacious, Priest-Father Dan of the Church of Abortion will be in Prague spreading the good word, but we will have Greengoat as the artist in residence (whether he can work in oils depends on ventilation) and David Ewalt from the Arneson Memorial Gameday panel and nerdNYC’s Deliverator and Ray Weiss of Everything is Dolphins fame to help run it all if we spill over onto other tables.